Rooftop solar power hits a ceiling in China
Staff Reporter 2012-12-23 08:50
Solar panels on a rooftop in Nanjing. (Photo/CNS)
In the wake of Jeremy Rifkin's bestselling book The Third Industrial Revolution, in which the US economist foresees renewable energy forms dominating in the 21st century, Chinese entrepreneurs have recently started searching for rooftops where photovoltaic technology installation.
A rooftop PV power station is a system that uses one or more solar panels installed on the rooftops of residential or commercial buildings to convert sunlight into electricity. This is an example of distributed generation, a model that is expected to become increasingly common in the future as an alternative to massive central power stations.
Solar power has long ben identified as a growth market worthy of investment and an area in which China has an edge — with its vast territory, it has billions of square meters of space that could be used for solar power facilities.
The Chinese government announced in 2009 the launch of the Golden Sun Program to boost the country's use of solar power. Among those who won approval for Golden Sun projects are industry heavyweights such as Yingli as well as major utility companies like Guodian.
Despite the seemingly promising outlook, many PV businesses in China have been struggling in any case amid protectionist trade measures overseas and excessive capacity and may not find it so easy to set up rooftop stations at this juncture.
First of all, it is extremely difficult to find available rooftops in China. Guangzhou's Southern Weekly recently quoted a local PV business operator as saying that he has sent his team to dozens of cities and has examined over 1 million square meters of rooftop space over the past six months. But only less than 10% of owners of available rooftop space have agreed to install PV power stations, the weekly said.
One of the main reasons for their reluctance in embracing the new technology is that many building owners in China either don't care about green energy or view it as more trouble than it is worth from their own point of view. Others have doubts about installing solar panels as it may not be immediately profitable despite the Golden Sun subsidies.
Many developers that have received government subsidies under the Golden Sun program are having trouble to complete the scheduled rooftop PV installations because of these challenges. "It is not that we don't want to finish the project, it is that we cannot find a way to carry it out," a source told the Southern Weekly.
